I run a server, which runs my file share and TVheadend streaming server. As I use multiple TVs at the same time, the router at the top has high load. Actual configuration is: WWW → router → switch1 → server. switch2 is attached on router. So routing of tv signal (in case if TV is on switch2 is server → switch1 → router → switch2 → TV.
I would like to load balance it on two switches to gain more throughput. Something like that:
Is this possible as simple switching or do I need to route it on different subnets?
If you just have in mind that currently the packet from the server must get to switch 2 through the router because there is no direct link between the server and switch 2, it is not a matter of load balancing. If you configure hardware offloading of the bridge to which both switch 1 and switch 2 are connected, you will relieve the router’s CPU from forwarding the packets from switch 1 to swicth 2 because the switch chip in the router will deal with it (if it is there). You cannot create an L2 ring even if the switches were managed ones with STP support because STP always disables one of the links forming up the ring rather than finding the shortest path between each pair of member devices of the ring.
Thank you. I did not knew that there was such a HW offload feature (is it a new feature introduced recently?). I have activated it on the router and now CPU is about 5-7%. Btw. router is RB3011 and switches are CSS326.
The feature was always there but the configuration method has changed. Prior to ROS 6.41, a single “master port” was made a member of the bridge, and all frames between this “master port” and all “slave ports” referring to it were forwarded by the switch chip. From 6.41 on, the same physical behavior is controlled by setting all the ports, previously configured as a master and its slaves, as bridge members and switching on the hw-offload on these ports.
